‘ZERO’ to ‘INFINITY’

SUN 10 Nov 6.30pm

BACH, DEBUSSY, XENAKIS…and a thrilling NEW WORK celebrating the 60th anniversary of architect Le Corbusier’s city of Chandigarh in India.

With a line up of outstanding musicians:

Clare Hammond piano “…amazing power and panache”
Telegraph

Joby Burgess “…pioneer of percussion”
Gramophone

Matthew Barley cello “His virtuosic control has to be heard to be believed”
Times (London)

“Musical Royalty”

Performing together at the Petworth Music Festival, Matthew Barley, Soumik Datta, and Sukhvinder Singh ‘Pinky’ were described as ‘Royalty among world musicians”. The standing ovation they received was confirmation of this.

Matthew Barley

Why ‘ZERO TO INFINITY’?

The mathematical concept of ‘0’ was invented in India. Without ‘0’ we would have no digital age.

This programme explores the theme of this year’s festival : the fascinating relationships between MUSIC - MATHEMATICS - and ARCHITECTURE.

JS Bach with his preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys is the great example of mathematically structured western classic music. Complex and often performed by many players the notes are written down, and divided into bars usually of 1,2,3,4 beats in the bar. East European music is characteristically in 5 or 7 beats. Debussy was attracted by the ‘Golden Mean’ and the Fibonacci Sequence.

In contrast classical Indian music is melody based, with a single melodic voice, with often a single percussion accompaniment, so it is not written down allowing great freedom for improvisation. Yet ragas are built around a mathematic grid, which could be 13 or 21 beats (Fibonacci again!)

Each culture provides a gloriously rich musical listening experience. Our specially commissioned work, ‘Chandigarh’, is a thrilling juxtaposition of the two mathematically-based musical cultures. Performed by musicians of the highest rank.